December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Stinger strike stagesetting
by Frederick Burroughs 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There's a story in the Dec. 30, 1998 Washington Post about how US intelligence acquires foreign weapons technology. Specific mention is made about trading US Stinger missile know-how to China for whatever. My guess is the government's trying to set the stage to shift blame away from CIA for leaking antiaircraft missile technology, 1000 Stingers in the hands of Afghan rebels notwithstanding, and the aircraft disasters to come. Story at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/campfin/stories/vecto… And, of course the esteemed Mr. Young is always on top of things: http://jya.com/vector.htm

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True Random Numbers
by Kevlar 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Several months ago, someone was talking about "True random numbers" and how to obtain them, and I (rather ignorantly) suggested they run a recorded sound through a program to record a 1 for every peak of volume over a certian threshold , and a 0 for every thing quieter.(I think i suggested a russeling tree, or a waterfall) Just adjust the threshold according to the volume of your sampling. (it was clear in my mind, even if I can't explain it here) Little did I know... Read phrack 54.5. -Kevlar <Webmaster(a)max-web.com> Does God know Peano Algebra? Or does she not care if strong atheists couldnt reason their way out of a trap made of Boolean presumptions? A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing, but zero knowlege is absolutely subversive. Overspecialization breeds in weakness. It's a slow death. Beat your algorithms into swords, your dumb terminals into shields, and turn virtual machines into battlefields... Let the weak say, "I am strong" and question authority.

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BXA Crypto Rule
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

BXA has issued today an interim rule on encryption items which implements the administration's September export policy announcement, and requests comments: http://jya.com/bxa123198.txt (79K)

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DCSB Call for Speakers
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1998 09:51:21 -0500 To: dcsb(a)ai.mit.edu, dcsb-announce(a)ai.mit.edu From: Robert Hettinga <rah(a)shipwright.com> Subject: DCSB Call for Speakers Sender: bounce-dcsb(a)ai.mit.edu Reply-To: Robert Hettinga <rah(a)shipwright.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- The Program Committee of the Digital Commerce Society invites any member of the dcsb mailing lists to submit their proposal for a luncheon talk to the Society. Speakers can be any *principal* in any field of digital commerce. That means anyone who is doing interesting research or development in, or who is making significant market innovation in, the technology, finance, economics, law, or policy of commerce on the global public internetwork. The Committee tends to consider the person giving the talk first, and then gives the speaker lots of discretion in the content of their talk -- as long as it pertains to DCSB's charter to promote innovation in internet commerce. The Society's meetings are held on the first Tuesday of the month at the Downtown Branch of the Harvard Club of Boston, One Federal Street, Thirty-Eighth Floor, in Boston, from 12 to 2 in the afternoon. Unfortunately, the Society can not remunerate a speaker for any fees or expenses other than, obviously, the speaker's lunch, and basic overhead projection equipment. There is dial-up internet access for the meeting room. If you, or anyone you know, are interested in speaking to the society, please send, via email, a proposal, consisting of a single paragraph on the speaker, and a single paragraph on the proposed talk, to Robert Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)shipwright.com>, the chairman of the DCSB Program Committee, and the Society's Moderator. A list of previous speakers can be obtained with the following URL <mailto:majordomo@ai.mit.edu?body=info%20dcsb>, or, if your mailreader/browser doesn't support mailtos, send info dcsb in the *body* of a message to majordomo(a)ai.mit.edu . Thank you for considering DCSB in your speaking plans, and, if you have any questions on your submission, please contact me directly. Cordially, Robert A. Hettinga Moderator and Program Committee Chair, The Digital Commerce Society of Boston -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.5.5 iQEVAwUBNhTb/sUCGwxmWcHhAQHO2Qf/czV5QvJpM8RsX7UPydK0XAigPU6z+KxR 7sRwSOG+uguMLcEgvp+UItAOtXQc4ZGxMZib3LyqS9Hq3iZVHWTJkY/Qvk9kGUYH WNia7+1JTWfpeScDn8VSLQP4SgXSDXPoAagzxkTGs8fOuuwndb3TeDQOsTZvC/Br +Cb6cH5AM1rUr8IZBw7VJoLAkf0Hi3f1rtrWOp0lQ6DMcTVkfXy3lfa7scVXP90+ Wswa40wCrCp0O1N9mwhZa9BKGzztlksMRZzDLKVZe8tXqBMqdnQ6Un8cLLHIWdpK PFs32XSN9YqXvUQozsthc2Ao0rz4wqlTE26UNhcwCqDff04KrJ5/BA== =IhaG -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "The direct use of physical force is so poor a solution to the problem of limited resources that it is commonly employed only by small children and great nations." -- David Friedman, _The_Machinery_of_Freedom_ For help on using this list (especially unsubscribing), send a message to "dcsb-request(a)ai.mit.edu" with one line of text: "help". --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Learning experience
by bill payne 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Thursday 12/31/98 9:49 AM John Young I did the first update this morning. I wonder how many rows one gets in a table until the system bombs? The Great Satan tries to bury its dissident citizens in its hidden SECRET cemetery. We will try to fix this problem. bill Title: pro se(Page 2) Pro Se [for youself] Litigation with the US Government Click 12/29/1998 - Date TenFrap40 Legal manuvering- Fed. R. App. P. 40. Petition for Rehearing 12/31/1998 foia3a47.txt Payne and Morales NSA lawsuitLetter accompanying Tenth Circuit ruling 12/31/1998 foia3a46.txt Payne and Morales NSA lawsuit Tenth Circuit Rule 54(b) ruling 12/31/1998 foia3a44.txt Payne and Morales address US Government lien 12/31/1998 foia3a43.txt Payne and Morales NSA lawsuit STATEMENT OF RULE 54(b) CERTIFICATION 12/31/1998 bur13.txt Payne exhausts administrative remedies at EEOC 12/29/1998 pena7.txt Payne exhausts administrative remedies at DOE 12/29/1998 jya.com This is a link to John Young's Cryptome web site 12/29/1998

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RE: Norway - go to jail for naming baby illegal [CNN]
by Trei, Peter 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> -----Original Message----- > From: Jim Choate [SMTP:ravage@EINSTEIN.ssz.com] > Sent: Thursday, December 24, 1998 4:43 PM > To: cypherpunks(a)EINSTEIN.ssz.com > Subject: Norway - go to jail for naming baby illegal [CNN] > > Forwarded message: > > > X-within-URL: > http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9812/23/BC-Norway-NameLaws.ap/ > > > Mother of 14 jailed for violating Norway's baby-name law > > > > December 23, 1998 > > Web posted at: 9:52 AM EST (1452 GMT) > > > > > > OSLO, Norway (AP) -- A mother of 14 was jailed this week because she > > refused to change the name she picked for her young son, even though > > that violated Norway's name law. > > > > Kirsti Larsen, 46, told the Verdens Gang newspaper that she named her > > son Gesher after she dreamed the child should be named "bridge." > > Gesher means bridge in Hebrew. > > > > Norway has strict laws regulating names, including lists of > acceptable > > first and last names. In 1995, Larsen tried to register her son's > name > > as Gesher at her local county office, which rejected the choice as > > illegal. > > [text deleted] > [Trei, Peter] This is the case in many countries - Germany and France for two. In Iceland, immigrants are required to change their names to Norse ones as part of the citizenship process. Peter Trei

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un-erata
by Alan Tu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The URL in the README.!ST file in the package is correct, thanks to Ralf. Alan

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FWD: Boston Globe on International Net Threats
by Stewart, William C (Bill), BNSVC 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Boston Globe December 28, 1998 Pg. A1 Nations strive to limit freedom of the Internet By David L. Marcus, Globe Staff WASHINGTON - As promised, the Internet is turning into an unstoppable geyser of information, a source of data, news and opinions that flow freely around the world. Except in China, which blocks access to sites about Tibet, Taiwan, democratic movements and dissident groups. Except in Saudi Arabia, which censors sites critical of the royal family. Except in Germany, where a judge sentenced a CompuServe manager to two years in prison for allowing access to pornography. Except in Cuba, which has seized laptop computers from dissidents as "subversive instruments." In short, despite grand promises, the Internet is not yet an unrestricted electronic village green for the world. The more information that becomes available, the more governments try to stanch the flow with new filtering technologies or strict limits on who can use computers. Democracies as well as dictatorships are cracking down on sites that are found to be too dangerous, too lurid, or too controversial. "The restrictions are coming fast and furious," said Barry Steinhardt, chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group based in San Francisco, and head of the American Civil Liberties Union's task force on cyber-liberties. "The Internet is very frightening to many governments because it's an inherently democratic medium, so the first reaction is to reach out and control it." At least 20 countries restrict access to Internet sites, from Bahrain, which bans electronic versions of Playboy magazine and home pages that the government says are pornographic, to Singapore, where the Ministry of Information and the Arts keeps out sexually explicit material and news critical of the government. More than a dozen other countries are considering restrictions. The European Union, for example, is weighing proposals to ban child pornography and xenophobic materials. In Germany, freedom-of-speech advocates are outraged by a judge's decision in May to sentence the CompuServe official to jail (the judge suspended the sentence). The United States, too, is trying to restrict the Internet. A 1996 law, the Communications Decency Act, criminalized on-line communcations that were "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy or indecent, with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass another person." Under that definition, independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr's report to Congress on President Clinton probably would have been banned from the Net. The Supreme Court struck down the law, but another aimed at sites harmful to children is supposed to take effect next year. A growing number of civil liberties groups - such as Global Internet Liberty Campaign, Digital Freedom Network, Internet Freedom, OpenNet, and Britain's Cyber-Rights and Cyber-Liberties - vehemently oppose restrictions on the Internet. But many specialists argue that the issue is more complex. Shouldn't Germany have the right to restrict false and provocative Nazi propaganda? Shouldn't American states have the right to stop electronic dissemination of step-by-step instructions on assembling a car bomb? And why should any government allow child pornography to proliferate? "In all countries, you will find people who argue that certain things should not be available to other people," said David Webster, chairman of the Transatlantic Dialogue on Broadcasting and the Information Society, a group that includes private industry and government. "No politician gets up and says: 'I think the availability of pedophilia material is concomitant to liberty.' He'll lose his seat." The impulse to restrict access has been highlighted this month in China, where the government is holding its first trial of a "cyber-dissident." Lin Hai, a 30-year-old software engineer, is charged with inciting subversion by providing 30,000 Chinese e-mail addresses to a dissident group in Washington. Lin, who says he is innocent, faces a maximum penalty of life in prison. Lawyers who follow China's one-sided judicial system say he is likely to be convicted. In Shanghai, a physicist named Wang Youcai, who registered an independent political party, was sentenced to 11 years in prison. His crime: communicating with democracy activists inside and outside of China. As President Jiang Zemin cracks down on dissent, other cyber-sedition trials are likely in 1999. Less dramatic but just as important, China's day-to-day censorship of the Internet affects scores of groups. The International Campaign for Tibet, for instance, often receives reports that the Chinese government has blocked access to its web site, said communications director Teresa Perrone. But she added that enterprising scholars in China often find ways to circumvent the censors and look at the group's information. Several groups report that when the government blocks sites, the information still reaches Chinese via e-mail, bulletin boards, chat rooms, web sites with code words that filters cannot detect and a variety of creative ways. "China may be the extreme case because they attempted to up a pretty impervious wall around the Internet," said Adam Clayton Powell III, vice president of the Freedom Forum, which advocates unrestricted media. "However, because China wants to be a world economic power they need high-speed, real-time, financial information." Financial reports from services such as Dow Jones or Reuters often contain political news. For every new restriction on the Net, there are new ways to get around it, said Vint Cerf, senior vice president for Internet architecture and technology at MCI-Worldcom. "It just isn't possible," to keep things away from Net viewers, he said. But Jonathan Zittrain, executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, said improved technology will make it easier to keep track of who is looking at the Net and to restrict what is seen. "China has fairly crude tools for filtering, but my prediction is the Internet of 2000 is one that China will have less difficulty in regulating," he said. Some countries that have sampled the Internet have found it distasteful. Last year, Vietnam decided to allow the public to use Internet services. But 10 days ago, the Communist Party decided to set up a committee to consider restrictions as a way of "correcting mistakes and bias," the Liberated Saigon newspaper reported. "The stronger the central government, the more conservative they are in terms of allowing political information on the Internet," said Grey Burkhart, a retired communications expert from the Navy reserve who helps international groups get access to technology. Burkhart has taken a special interest in developing countries, including Russia, Bosnia, and Syria. It isn't easy. Despite the government's pledges to open Syria, the country still has no Internet service provider. To access the Internet, computer users have to make long-distance calls to Lebanon and other countries. Syrians aren't allowed to have cellular telephones, which are considered a security risk. This year, however, Syria allowed computer modems to be installed and an Internet service is promised. The most restrictive countries, including Iraq, North Korea and Cuba, are those that control all forms of media, not just the Internet. In Havana's airport, several laptops carried in by passengers and intended for dissident groups have been seized in the last couple of years, said Frank Calzon, executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba. Police even took a $150 electronic typewriter from a dissident becaue it was "an instrument of high-tech subversion," Calzon said. Surprisingly, Latin America, which has a tradition of censorship, has been quite open to the Internet. Pedro Armendariz, the director of Investigative Editors and Reporters in Mexico, a non-profit group, has traveled to conferences in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Peru and throughout Mexico. Outside of Cuba, he has found no restrictions on the Net, other than the expense of service and unreliable telephone lines. "I would dare to say that far from having serious restrictions in Latin America, we have a problem with sorting through so many things on the Net and discriminating about what is useful and what is garbage," Armendariz said.

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Englewood seeks limit on Net sex sites
by Douglas L. Peterson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Seems this stuff is now in my own back yard. If anyone wants to talk to the people involved, go here: http://www.ci.englewood.co.us/ http://www.denver-rmn.com/news/1231filt4.shtml > Englewood seeks limit on Net sex sites > > Program to curb access of children at libraries > > Associated Press > > > ENGLEWOOD -- The Englewood Public Library will > be the first in Colorado to try a new technology > strictly limiting children's access to sex sites > on the World Wide Web. Mayor Tom Burns said the > city and its librarians have no intention of > censoring the Internet, and the Guardiannet > program can be cancelled after a 30-day test run > if it doesn't work out. > > Starting in April, all of the library's Internet > users will need a plastic "Smart Card" to go > online. The cards will be coded to indicate > whether children under 18 have their parents' > permission to full access or should be restricted > to the limited database of 5,000 child-friendly sites. > > "It's a solution that allows parents to make > the decision, rather than the institution," said > City Manager Gary Sears. > > However, Sears said the move could invite > lawsuits from civil rights groups that may > view the city's decision as censorship. The > move also comes amid national debate > among librarians on whether blocking systems > constitutes censorship and violates First > Amendment rights. > > Jamie LaRue, president of the Colorado Library > Association, called Internet restrictions > "a tricky issue." > > "When I was a little boy ...I knew what was > wrong," LaRue said. "The part that bothers > me is that we are using technological > inventions to replace civility and conscience in > what is in fact an ethical problem." > > The Englewood City Council voted 5-2 to > approve the $108,000 contract with > Guardiannet, even though the library > board recommended against it. > > Councilwoman Lauri Clapp said it will give > the library the needed tools to help parents > protect their children. City Councilwoman > Alex Habenicht opposed the measure. > > December 31, 1998 -Doug www.TheServerFarm.net

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critique of capitalism/moore
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

------- Forwarded Message Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1998 13:04:29 -0500 From: "Mark A. Smith" <msmith01(a)flash.net> To: Mark <msmith01(a)flash.net> Subject: SNET: Police State Conspiracy - An Indictment (Conclusions) - -> SNETNEWS Mailing List This is a multi-part message in MIME format. - --------------5E5047714EA Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit http://www.newdawnmagazine.com.au/51b.htm - --------------5E5047714EA Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; name="51b.htm" Content-Disposition: inline; filename="51b.htm" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-MIME-Autoconverted: from 8bit to quoted-printable by echo.flash.net id MAA07108 THE POLICE STATE CONSPIRACY =97 an INDICTMENT =97 [Image] By RICHARD MOORE [CLOSING ARGUMENTS] Presented before the GRAND JURY of LIBERTY On this FOURTH DAY of HEARING The PEOPLE v NWO Et Al Defendant 1 - NWO ("Corporate Globalist Elite") Defendant 2 - MEDIA ("Corporate Mass Media") Defendant 3 - GOVT ("National Government Leadership") Defendant 4 - INTELCOM ("Intelligence Community") Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, in the first three days of this hearing we have seen how the infrastructures of a police state are being established in the United States. Civil liberty protections have been systematically dismantled; conspiracy laws permit the conviction of people not involved in crimes; police forces are being paramilitarised; longer sentences are being given for minor offences; prison populations are growing dramatically. We have seen how factionalism is being promoted in order to divide society against itself; we have seen how the evidence shows that dramatic incidents, such as the World Trade Centre and Oklahoma Federal Building bombings, have been covertly and intentionally staged in order to avoid debate in the implementation of police-state measures. Today, in these closing arguments, we will examine two points. First, we will review the background of the NWO capitalist elite in order to understand why political suppression via police-state measures is an inevitable necessity for them. Second, we will review recent developments in Ireland, to show how police-state measures which took years to justify politically in the US are being exported wholesale to other Western countries. 1. Capitalism and the Necessity of Police States in the West The religion of the NWO elite is capitalism, and the root of most of the problems of the world today, including the development of police states in the West, can be traced to the dynamics of capitalism. The dictionary definition of "capitalist" begins: "An investor of capital in business..." What distinguishes capitalism from earlier forms of private commerce and trade is the emphasis on external capital investment =97 funds which are invested in an enterprise for the purpose of increasing the value of the investment. In particular capitalism is characterised by stock corporations, where ownership shares in a business can be bought and sold. Stockholders are technically the owners of an enterprise, but the interests of stockholders are not the same as the interests of an owner who also operates an enterprise. An owner-operator is concerned with operating a healthy business and developing it over time. He or she might be interested in growing the business, or might just as well be happy for it to stabilise at some manageable size and then bring in a stable ongoing profit. But a capitalist, an external investor, is interested solely in the growth of the business, which is what increases the value of the stock investment. A stable business translates into stagnant stock values; a business which is merely profitable is not a good place for capital investment. One can compare a corporation =97 or any investment vehicle =97 to a taxicab, and an investor to a rider. The operator of a taxicab is concerned with keeping the vehicle in good repair and making a regular profit over time. A rider, on the other hand, is only concerned with his own use of the vehicle. If the rider gets to his destination on time, he has little concern over whether the vehicle is damaged in the process. Similarly a capital investor uses an investment vehicle. Only a period of growth is required by the investor. If the vehicle then falters, investors simply sell their shares and reinvest elsewhere. The history of capitalism is indeed strewn with the carcasses of boom-and-bust corporations, industries, and whole economies. In a capitalist economy there is a pool of capital =97 the sum of all the money investors are making available. Just as water seeks its own level, so this ever-growing capital pool always seeks the best available growth opportunities. And just as water over time can wear down the highest mountain, so the relentless pressure of this growth-seeking capital pool eventually creates an economy and society in which growth is the dominant agenda. External ownership =97 the separation of ownership from operation =97 is the origin of the growth imperative in a capitalist economy. The evolution of capitalism proceeds according to the following dynamic. In each phase of its development capitalism operates within a larger societal regime =97 a particular political, cultural, technological, and economic environment. Within this regime, under the relentless pressure of the investment pool, the various investment vehicles are exploited to the maximum practical degree. There always comes a point where further growth of the pool becomes problematic or impossible. When such a societal growth barrier is encountered, the creative energy of capitalism is unleashed on a new objective: changing the surrounding societal regime. There is thus a characteristic rhythm to capitalist evolution. Periods of growth within a regime are punctuated by changes of regime designed to create a new period of growth. A new societal regime might be characterised by technological changes (the Industrial Revolution), by political changes (creation of republics), or by new societal projects (imperialism.) Driven by its relentless growth imperative, capitalism has become the driving force behind societal evolution wherever it has taken hold. Apologists for capitalism call such societal changes "progress" and emphasise whatever real or imagined beneficial qualities might be present. In fact such changes have been designed by human creativity yoked to the objective not of societal improvement, but to that of creating new investment vehicles for the ever-voracious capital pool. In fact the intentional destruction of societies and economies, particularly but not only in colonised nations, has been a technique frequently employed to create new investment vehicles. One of the most important and characteristic societal developments brought about by capitalism is the rise of capitalist elite oligarchies. Given that the evolution of capitalism proceeds through an ongoing series of intentional societal changes, it is only natural that the mechanisms of societal control would themselves evolve over time and eventually be consolidated into political domination by a capitalist elite. People of the same trade seldom meet together... but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. =97 Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations In every society where capitalism has taken hold, a dominant capitalist oligarchy has in fact emerged, along with the establishment of institutions designed to further elite interests in a systematic way. Today, the United States itself has become a vehicle for managing world events so as to facilitate investment, to make the world safe for capitalism. Transnational corporations (TNC=92s) have evolved into gigantic engines for generating capital growth, and TNC-dominated bureaucracies (International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Trade Organisation, et al) are being given global decision-making power over a wide range of issues, loosely called economic =97 and those institutions are rapidly becoming in all but name a world government. Global capitalism today is coming up against several constraints, and globalisation, in its full NWO dimensionality, can be seen as the creative attempt by very competent, corporate-funded planners to overcome those constraints. One of the constraints comes from the very global success of capitalism =97 there is no longer any possibility of growth through territorial expansion. Other means of growth =97 and many have been perfected over the years =97 must b= e deployed. In Southeast Asia, in Africa, and in the former Soviet Union, the policies of Western finance capital and of its tool, the IMF, have created capital-growth vehicles through the intentional destruction of once healthy economies. In South Korea, for example, Western over-investment was followed by the sudden withdrawal of funds and credit. Thus a financial bubble was created, and when it burst the South Korean currency was destroyed and the national finances were depleted. In desperate need of finance, South Korea was forced to turn to the IMF. The IMF then came forward with one of its infamous "restructuring" programs which in truth should be called "demolition" programs. Sound businesses that had been thriving only weeks before were forced into bankruptcy; South Korea was forced to change its social and labour policies from top to bottom; the systems were dismantled which had been responsible for South Korea=92s postwar economic success. These so-called IMF "reforms" which were forced on South Korea had nothing to do with the causes of the financial collapse. Not only that, but the IMF "rescue funds" did not go to South Korea at all, but were rather used to repay the external investors whose market manipulations had caused the collapse. While Western taxpayers fund the IMF, and Southeast Asian (and other) populations suffer the consequences of IMF policies, it is Western capital that reaps all the benefits. What were the benefits reaped by Western capital? To begin with, the IMF bailout of the investors means that Western capital was first able to profit from the decades of South Korean growth, but was then protected when the bubble burst. Global capitalism has been called "casino capitalism", and the IMF makes sure that the big players cannot lose in this game, no matter which cards turn up. But that was only the beginning. To understand the primary benefit derived from destroying the South Korean economy, we must note that capitalism is currently suffering from what is called a "crisis of over-production". The efficiency and size of TNC producers have evolved to the degree where much more can be produced than can possibly be consumed. In automobiles, electronics, and many other industries there are simply too many producers chasing too few consumers. Interventions such as in South Korea and the former Soviet Union have become a systematic mechanism to selectively cull global competitors, thus creating growth room for those that remain. In addition, the assets and productive capacity of the victims have been made available at bargain prices for purchase by Western interests. This selective destruction of economies is a "regime change" in the global society, designed to create growth vehicles for the Western capital pool. Elimination of producers creates growth room in the global economy for Western operators; bargain purchase of assets increases monopoly concentration of global commerce in Western hands; destabilised societies are forced to import what they formerly produced for themselves, further increasing Western capital-growth opportunities. One of the myths of globalisation is that it represents a relative decline of Western interests, that market forces will allow other regions to make inroads against traditional Western domination. With the postwar economic rise of Japan and later Southeast Asia, this myth in fact gained considerable credibility. But as the postwar boom began to level out, and a new regime of growth became necessary, it has become clear that the global capital elite remains primarily a Western elite. The IMF is in fact dominated primarily by Western-based interests, and its power has been used to selectively cull non-Western operators. While the IMF culls competitors using the power of the purse strings, the US and NATO accomplish the same objective in other ways. In the case of the petroleum market, where limiting supply is crucial to maintaining desired global oil prices, geopolitical machinations have been employed to restrict at various times the production of Iran, Iraq, Libya, and others. By encouraging the split-up of Yugoslavia, which competed in several world markets including automobile production, additional culling was accomplished. As capitalism enters its global era, it is doing so under the control of the Western capitalist elite. This elite dominates the leading Western nations politically, even more firmly controls the foreign policies of those nations, and totally controls the policies of the IMF, the World Bank, and the other institutions of the global governmental apparatus. All the potent agencies which determine the course of global societal evolution are firmly in the control of the Western elite. But in another sense the decline of the West is not myth but reality. Western elites remain in firm control and continue to prosper under globalisation, but Western societies are in fact in decline =97 economically, culturally, and politically. This decline is intentional, planned and implemented by the capitalist elite as a societal change designed, as always, to create growth vehicles for the capital pool. This particular episode of Western societal engineering is called the "neoliberal revolution" and it was formally launched with the candidacies of Ronald Reagan in the US and Margaret Thatcher in the UK, and with the adoption of the Maastricht Treaty in Europe. The agenda of the neoliberal revolution is summed up in the all-too-familiar mantra "free trade, deregulation, privatisation, and reform". The true meaning of this agenda can be easily found by analysing each transaction in terms of its consequences for capital growth. Free trade, whose practical definition must be inferred from the terms of the international free-trade agreements, in fact means the elimination of national sovereignty over the flow of capital and goods. The consequence is that TNC=92s have more flexibility in optimising production and distribution, and in exploiting the opportunities created by the culling of competitors. This flexibility is the growth vehicle provided by the free-trade plank of the neoliberal platform. Deregulation refers to the elimination of national sovereignty over corporate concentration, capital movement, corporate operations, pricing, and product standards. Again the benefit is clear. Greater freedom in concentrating ownership, shifting capital, operating without environmental or other restraints, raising prices, and reducing standards =97 these all provide vehicles for growth in this neoliberal phase of capitalism in Western economies. Privatisation refers to the sale of national assets to corporate operators and the transfer of control over national infrastructures to those operators. Each such transfer creates an immediate growth vehicle for capital, in the exploitation of the asset and the infrastructure. In addition the transfers have been in fact sweetheart deals where negotiators on both sides of the transactions have represented the interests of the same capitalist elite. Asset values have been heavily discounted, through various tried-and-true trickeries of accounting, and the "sales" have in fact represented immediate transfers of wealth from public ownership directly into corporate coffers. The sale transactions themselves are growth vehicles. Reform, besides referring to generic compliance with the neoliberal agenda, also means reducing the taxes of corporations and the wealthy, eliminating social services, and generally cutting back the functions of government. Obviously these tax changes serve to grow the capital pool. The elimination of social services also serves as a growth vehicle in two ways. Workers become hungrier for employment, creating a downward pressure on wages. New enterprises can be started in order to provide the services formerly provided by government (medical care, insurance, etc). The general cutting back of government functions is simply part of the sovereignty transfer from national governments to the centralised regime of global institutions. As power and administration is concentrated globally, the role of national governments is being reduced and refocused. As has been long true of governments in much of the Third World, the role of Western governments is devolving toward three major functions: conforming to the dictates of the global regime, making payments on the national debt, and controlling the domestic population. The paramilitarisation of police forces, the rise in prison populations, and the extension of police powers are very necessary societal changes required to enable the full implementation of the neoliberal agenda. It is no accident that in the USA, where the neoliberal agenda has been most thoroughly implemented, the collateral police-state apparatus is also most thoroughly deployed. SWAT teams, midnight raids, property confiscations, mandatory and draconian sentencing, a booming prison-construction industry, increased surveillance and monitoring of individuals and organisations =97 these are all an increasing part of the American scene. Government officials have stated that Americans must expect even more dramatic security measures, and that military vehicles and weapons can be expected in domestic situations where warranted by security concerns. The neoliberal agenda in fact amounts to the dismantlement of Western societies, undoing what was in some sense many decades of social progress. Although the dominant global elite remains based in the West, strong Western societies are no longer required under the global regime, as they were in the era of competitive nationalism. Just as the IMF devastates non-Western societies in ways that provide growth vehicles, so the neoliberal revolution devastates Western societies for the same purpose, if at a somewhat more gradual pace. Police-state regimes, whether or not acknowledged by that name, are an inevitable necessity if Western nations are to be kept in line as the neoliberal dismantlement, which is still in its early days, continues to unfold. 2. Exporting the Police State: Ireland and the Omagh Bombing I=92ve been living in the UK and Ireland for over four years. I=92ve been observing the peace process and the tactics of the various sides, including several Irish Republican Army (IRA) bombings. While by no means condoning violent methods, I have been nonetheless impressed by the care that went into the planning and execution of most of the IRA=92s operations. Huge bombs were set off in London, in the heart of the financial district and at the Docksides complex, causing immense property damage and embarrassment to British officials, with surprisingly little injury or loss of life. Without approving of violence, one can still acknowledge that the IRA has, at least in recent years, been politically astute in their (nonetheless unjustifiable) operations. The Omagh bombing was totally out of character; it made no sense whatsoever within the political context of Northern Ireland and the progress of the peace process. Certainly there are dissident elements who aren=92t satisfied with the compromises that have been reached, but accommodations have been made to all sides, and the overwhelming spirit in both North and South is to reach a settlement and put the "troubles behind us". The Omagh bombing was the most deadly of the entire 30-year "troubles". It was out of character not only by its timing, but also in terms of its scale. My first response on hearing of it was "Where did this come from?" It seemed to have come from out of the blue, totally unrelated to the Irish context. It felt like one of the "staged dramatic incidents" that we reviewed in the previous instalment of this Indictment (see New Dawn No. 48). Suspicious, I waited for the other shoe to drop. I didn=92t have to wait long. The headline on page seven of the Irish Times for September 1st reads: "Harsh measures =91regrettably necessary=92 to fight terrorism." Here we read of a fourteen-point anti-terrorism bill that is, in its essentials, copied directly from the police-state provisions that have been adopted in varying degrees by the US and Britain. A suspect who refuses to answer questions, can have his silence used against him. The silence itself can be "inferred" as being corroborating evidence against the suspect. The right to trial by jury becomes little more than a sham: if the suspect doesn=92t confess all, he either opens himself to perjury (by lying) or else builds, through silence, an "inferred" case against himself. The validity of trial by jury is further undermined by a another provision, which requires the defense to announce to the prosecution, in advance of a trial, all witnesses it is going to call. Thus the prosecution is armed in advance with the strategy of the defense, much to its advantage. And witnesses are exposed to possible harassment leading up to the trial, the fear of which could have a chilling effect on their willingness to testify. As if that weren=92t enough, a suspect is expected to divulge, under police questioning, every bit of evidence that he might rely on in his defense. Otherwise "inferences" can be drawn. The very vagueness of "inferences" still further extends the power of the state over that of the accused in what has become a mockery of a criminal trial. The "conduct" of an accused =97 by which he can be judged guilty =97 is re-defined to include "movements, activities, actions or associations". The critical word here is "associations". If you can be proved to be a member of an organisation, and if that organisation engages in illegal acts, then your mere association makes you to some degree a party to the acts. This provision establishes in Ireland what in the US are known as conspiracy laws. Such laws, in conjunction with agent provocateurs, can be used to suppress popular organisations which legitimately and legally oppose government policies. Just as the US President, under police-state provisions, can declare any organisation to be a "terrorist organisation", so can the Irish government "suppress" any organisation under the 1939 "Offences Against the State" act. The new "regrettable measures" of the anti-terrorism bill extend considerably the power of the state to succeed in suppressing any organisation it decides it doesn=92t like. Under the charge of "directing an unlawful organisation", one can receive life imprisonment. "Directing", it turns out, means directing the activities of the organisation "at any level". Thus, if an organisation has been officially "suppressed", all of its leaders down to the precinct level can be rounded up and put in prison with the key thrown away =97 simply for being leaders, and even if the organisation is engaged in no illegal activity. Under the charge of "unlawful collection of information" one can be imprisoned for up to 10 years. If you have maps and lists of people, perhaps to support political organising, and the prosecutor says you were planning a terrorist network, it is up to you to prove he=92s wrong. Again trial by jury is made a mockery. Instead of the state proving its case beyond a reasonable doubt, it is up to the accused to prove they aren=92t guilty. During thirty years of troubles such anti-terrorist provisions were not considered necessary. Then on the very eve of final settlement a mysterious, uncharacteristic "incident" occurs in Omagh, and with suspicious suddenness the Irish government comes up with an anti-terrorism bill which mimics the "latest developments" in the police-state provisions of the US and Britain. The parallels between the Oklahoma City and Omagh bombing scenarios are striking. Both were unprecedented in their scale of death and injury; neither made any sense in terms of being a "political statement" for any group or organisation; the circumstance of both were highly suspicious; both were immediately followed by the passage of omnibus anti-terrorism bills without debate. Summary The pattern, then, is clear. The US leads the way in the development of police-state measures and of the means to get them implemented without debate. The measures are then exported to other countries by the tried-and-true method of staging dramatic incidents. Globalisation is a very systematic process, as we have seen in the pattern of IMF interventions, and as we can see in the establishment of global governing institutions. It is no surprise that a systematic means have been developed to implement the police-state regimes which are required to fulfill the aims of the neoliberal revolution. The evidence, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is clear. Our NWO elite leaders are committed to the program of corporate globalisation. They are compelled to this strategy by the need to keep their capital pool growing. Reducing Western populations to Third-World status is a necessary part of their plans for the globalisation of the economy and the consolidation of all power in their centralised bureaucracies. The installation of police-state regimes is being purposely pursued in order to force this elite program on Western populations. I suggest to you that the only reasonable verdict is "guilty as charged", and that the sentence should be the overthrow of the capitalist elite oligarchy, through non-violent democratic revolution, and the replacement of the capitalist system by one more appropriate to human happiness and well-being. I thank you for your attention and invite you to go forth and do your duty as free men and women to secure the future of the Earth and of your progeny. Recommended Reading (alphabetical order): William Blum, Killing Hope, US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, 1995, Common Courage Press, PO Box 702, Monroe, ME 04951, USA. Michel Chossudovsky, The Globalisation of Poverty, 1997, Third World Network, 228, Macalister Road, 10400 Penang, Malaysia, fax 60 4 226 4505. Richard Douthwaite, The Growth Illusion, 1992, Lilliput Press, Dublin. William Greider, Who Will Tell the People =97 the Betrayal of American Democracy, 1993, Simon and Schuster. Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, 1997, Simon and Schuster. V.I. Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, 1939, International Publishers Co. Jerry Mander and Edward Goldsmith (editors), The Case Against the Global Economy and for a Turn Toward the Local, 1996, Sierra Club Books, San Francisco. Richard K. Moore, Globalization and the Revolutionary Imperative, a book-in-progress available online at http://cyberjournal.org/cadre/gri/gri.html Michael Parenti, Make-Believe Media =97 the Politics of Entertainment, 1992, St. Martin=92s Press, New York. David Wise, The American Police State, 1973, Vintage Books. Previous parts of Richard Moore=92s Police State Conspiracy =97 An Indictment were published in New Dawn Nos. 46, 47 & 48. [Image] Richard Moore, an expatriate from Silicon Valley, currently lives and writes in Wexford, Ireland. He currently runs the Cyberjournal "list" on the Internet. Email: rkmoore(a)iol.ie, FTP: ftp://ftp.iol.ie/users/rkmoore/cyberlib Address: PO Box 26, Wexford, Ireland. - --------------5E5047714EA-- - -> Send "subscribe snetnews " to majordomo(a)world.std.com - -> Posted by: "Mark A. Smith" <msmith01(a)flash.net> ------- End of Forwarded Message

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